Once upon a time, the witch is vague on how long ago exactly, I was an ordinary girl. I lived in a besieged city that was claimed by two countries. Over many hundreds of years the city grew and sometimes it was claimed by one state and other times it was claimed by the other. Sometimes it was taken in a bloodless coup, once it was traded for other land and, at the time I was born, my home city was suffering a long siege. Missiles destroyed homes and infrastructure and the only crop which flourished were fear and hunger.

The people who remained in the city were a rag tag bunch. There were the elderly, too frail to leave and with nowhere to go. There were defenders, who fought to keep the invaders from taking the city too soon. And there were my parents. I don’t know much about them. Only that they left it too late to leave.

My parents met the witch when she came down into the train station that my parents spent their nights sheltering in. She spoke the old language. She knew insurgent passwords. But probably, the witch says, they let her pass the barricade because she had food.

And when they said she could stay just one night she said she needed to bring the children down. That’s when they must have seen my brothers and sisters. A small group of children who were not starving. The witch brought them down into the station and fed them and wrapped them in clean warm blankets and told them stories of hope and how they would see the city rise again.

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Did my parents creep up and listen? Did they offer me then or in the morning? The witch says my father offered me to her, that my mother did not disagree. She says I was almost too weak to take. Malnourishment and lack of sunlight and the constant shriek of bombs and screams of people had stunted my growth. Or maybe, the witch always puts her head on one side when she says this, maybe my parents lied about my age.

The next morning the witch found me room in her light armored vehicle with the red cross on each door. I don’t know if I waved as we left. I don’t know if I cried. That was the past. It is part of the story of how I came to be here.

The next part of my story was a place we went. It used to be a hospital. That’s where sick people went to get better. The witch had friends there and they set about fixing us. Getting us strong. We worked at learning what was needed to keep safe and keep others safe. That was where we prepared for our role. A job to keep our city safer than it ever had before. A position we would hold all our lives.

The others were with me in the hospital but a tower defender must learn the art of solitude. We slept alone. We studied alone. We received our implants alone.

When I was ready I would accept the tower sentinel program. I had a choice. They made that clear. We all had a choice.

I went into the tower of my own free will.